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The country’s largest beer maker, United Breweries, has appointed Shekhar Ramamurthy as the new CEO and Managing Director of the company.
He replaces Kalyan Ganguly, an industry veteran and a close associate of Chairman Vijay Mallya. According to a press statement from the company, Ganguly, 64, decided to resign from United Breweries to pursue other interests. “The board of the company reluctantly accepted his wishes,” the statement signed by Mallya said.
Ramamurthy has worked with the UB Group for the last 26 years and is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Calcutta.
Dutch beer maker Heineken holds a majority stake in UB and recently acquired shares of United Spirits for Rs 872 crore to increase its stake to 42.2 per cent. UB Holdings, including Mallya, owns 32.6 per cent in the company.
Net profit slips 4.7% to Rs 123 cr in Q1
In another development, UB said its net profit declined 4.68 per cent to Rs 122.81 crore during the first quarter of this fiscal largely because of the stagnant industry. Net sales grew 4.61 per cent to Rs 1,337.88 crore during the same period. The statement said profit before taxes were minus 3 per cent because of an extraordinary benefit included in the first quarter’s figures of last year, that being a one-time Government subsidy of Rs 10.9 crore.
The statement said UB’s volume ended 1 per cent below the previous year’s with the industry declining 2 per cent in volume terms against last year’s first quarter. The industry was sluggish during the first quarter because of pricing issues in the eastern market and a further decline in volume in Tamil Nadu.
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